


Not Yet

by demiksmith



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Extreme angst, I APOLOGIZE, M/M, do not read for happy times, minor features of Blackwall and Sera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 12:46:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3610614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demiksmith/pseuds/demiksmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Don't make this sound like goodbye. This isn't goodbye. Not yet." "Not yet."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Yet

**Author's Note:**

> Truth be told, this was inspired by this gifset: http://demiksmith.tumblr.com/post/114546870915   
> Odd, but so is my brain. I apologize ahead of time, because if this works out as I planned, it will be very sad.

“Amatus, don’t go.” Dorian wheezes, fingers weakly grasping his broken staff. He’s on his back, eyes squinting against the pouring rain. It feels like he’s drowning, the blood in his lungs heavy and unwelcome.

“I’m here Dorian, and I’m not going anywhere, not without you.” The Inquisitor’s leg is mangled, but he pulls himself closer, grabbing Dorian’s hands tightly. There’s a raspy wetness to his voice, and Dorian shivers, fear and cold settling in his bones.

The mud is sucking on his back, his arms, and that’s when Dorian realizes he can’t feel his legs. He laughs weakly, eyes sliding shut as tears begin to fall. Trevelyan presses his forehead to Dorian’s shoulder, breaths shuddering. Their fingers are slick with blood and rain, and Dorian reaches for the last dregs of his mana, wincing at the pain. He sends what healing he can into Trevelyan, enough to slow the bleeding, ease the worst of the pain.

Sera is an unmoving lump on the edge of Dorian’s peripheral, Blackwall slumped over next to her. Dorian’s fingers tighten on the Inquisitor’s as he thinks _, no getting out of this one_.

“Remember that time Varric wrote a story about us?” He says, voice as chipper as he can make it. Trevelyan laughs weakly against his shoulder, and Dorian presses on. “I threatened to set his chest hair on fire in front of everyone in the main hall.”

“I remember.” The Inquisitor murmurs, shaking his head.

“Well, I forgot to tell you one important detail.” Dorian pauses for dramatic effect, and to swallow some of the blood climbing up his throat. “I paid him to write it.”

Trevelyan is laughing, but there’s an underlying wheeze that worries Dorian. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you have grown accustomed to my wily ways.” Dorian says, turning to press his lips to Trevelyan’s hair. There’s a gash in his scalp, and now even more blood on Dorian’s lips, but he doesn’t care. Trevelyan pushes himself up, wincing as his injuries stretch and pull. He pulls Dorian toward him, until his back is flush to the Inquisitor’s chest. Their breaths mist in the air, and it is quiet, save for the heavy rain.

“Sera-” The Inquisitor starts, and Dorian’s not ready to go there, not yet.

“And the time Josephine’s little cakes ended up in your quarters?” He says, eyes closed, and he can feel the Inquisitor breathing against his back. “ _I_ stole them.”

“That wasn’t unexpected.” Trevelyan says with a snort. “The way you coveted them all morning before they went missing.”

Dorian swallows more blood, shaking his head to clear the tears from his eyes. “I don’t even like little cakes.”

The warrior’s arms tighten around Dorian’s middle, and he laces their fingers together.

“I stole them for you.” Dorian continues, and he can feel the rumble of Trevelyan’s laugh against his back. The Inquisitor presses his lips to Dorian’s neck, and his tears fall there too, hot compared to the icy rain. Dorian squeezes his fingers, wishing he could do _something_. “I suppose I felt obligated to behave poorly, being the savage Tevinter magister and all.”

This is delivered in a wry, amused tone, but Trevelyan tightens his grip, shaking his head. “No one who knows you believes that, Dorian.”

Dorian is looking up, looking for the sun to break the clouds, scatter the rain. But there would be no sun, as night had fallen in the midst of the fighting, and what light is left is steadily failing. He lets his head fall against Trevelyan’s shoulder, and closes his eyes, a bone deep exhaustion suddenly gripping him.

“I’m here, Dorian, I’m right here.” Trevelyan is murmuring, soothing, and Dorian realizes he is sobbing, his hands shaking as they grasp too tightly around the warrior’s.

Trevelyan tells no lies, no empty platitudes of _it will be alright, things will work out, we’ll be okay._ He just holds Dorian tightly to him, and for that, Dorian is grateful.

“Sera’s dead.” The Inquisitor says after a while, and Dorian nods stiffly. “So is Blackwall.”

And even though he _knows_ this, had watched them both fall, Dorian is stunned, shocked at how quickly two of their friends are just _gone_. Sera had stumbled, too many arrows in her rather than in her quiver, and Blackwall had done his best to shield her, using his own bulk when his shield had been torn from his grip.

Dorian shudders, and Trevelyan’s lips are at his neck. He grasps the warrior’s hands, feeling numb. “We aren’t getting out of this one, are we?”

Not the question he’d meant to ask, not when the warrior is trembling behind him, when their blood is soaking into the mud around them, but the Inquisitor answers anyway.

“No, probably not.” Trevelyan wasn’t an optimist, by any stretch, but the tired confirmation of Dorian’s fear isn’t reassuring.

It feels too little too late, but Dorian turns as much as he can. He wants to look the man in the eyes for this. “I love you.”

There’s a smile on the idiot’s face, and Dorian wants to smack him, even as Trevelyan leans closer. “I know. I love you too.”

Their kiss is desperate, salty from tears and tasting of rust and copper from blood. Trevelyan’s lip is split, and Dorian is struggling to breathe, a bloody froth on his lips, but he doesn’t let the Inquisitor pull away. The mage’s hands are cramping, cold and pained, but he tightens his grip on the warrior, pulling him as close as he can. They’re both crying, but Dorian ignores the cold, the pain, the disturbing _nothing_ where his legs should be, and focuses on this. Trevelyan is warm against him, and this man loves him.

“Dorian-” Trevelyan starts, and Dorian grips him tighter. “I am glad to have met you. To have known you.”

“Don’t make this sound like goodbye.” Dorian hisses, and the blighted fool won’t meet his eyes. Dorian shakes him as much as he can, weakly, the remaining strength in his limbs slipping away. “This isn’t goodbye. Not yet.”

Trevelyan looks up, and the pain, the sorrow on his face, dissipates with a gentle smile. “Not yet.”

Dying always sounded less drawn out, to Dorian. Unless you went with tortured deaths, of course. Even in the most graphic of Varric’s works, people died quickly. It didn’t take much longer than a handful of minutes. Only so much blood, you see. Trevelyan is humming brokenly at Dorian’s back, and the mage is drifting, not quite content, but not quite coherent. The feeling in his hands is starting to go now, and Dorian rouses himself long enough to grip Trevelyan’s hands tighter.

“Not yet.” He says, and the Inquisitor kisses his shoulder.

“Not yet.” His reply is soft, the pain evident in his voice.

 

He’s cold all over, wet from rain and blood, and still he clings, the feel of his amatus anchoring him here. Trevelyan’s breathing grows steadily worse, and Dorian would be terrified if he wasn’t so numb.

“Dorian?” His voice comes, and Dorian shifts as much as he can.

“Not yet, amatus.” He soothes, and the Inquisitor relaxes. The rain has yet to let up, and Dorian stares idly up, unblinking even when the rain falls into his eyes. “A little farm.”

“Pardon?” Trevelyan’s voice is close to incredulous, and Dorian nods.

“I would have liked to have a little farm. You’d be doing all the hard labour of course. Preferably shirtless.” His voice is raspy, and he swallows thick blood, suddenly desperate that Trevelyan know this imagined future. “We’d have chickens, a few cows. Maybe sheep, so I could make your clothes.”

Trevelyan is laughing, his body trembling from the effort, jostling Dorian. “I can’t imagine you being happy on a farm.”

“I’m happy as long as I’m with you.” Dorian says earnestly, and he lets his head flop to one side, trying to look at the Inquisitor’s face. “Albeit, there are degrees of happiness. For instance, I’d be much happier if we were both indoors and naked at the moment.”

Trevelyan kisses him, and its rough, sloppy, too much teeth and not enough time. “Sheep. What about horses?”

“Sure. And an orchard. Apples, those green ones you like.” Dorian is kissing him back, his words mumbled against the Inquisitor’s lips. “And berries. Berries and fresh cream for breakfast, every morning.”

They are both crying, but Dorian holds onto his warrior and their imagined future. Trevelyan kisses him, and murmurs against his lips. “I’d like that, Dorian.”

“Me too.” He says quietly, lost in what their lives _could_ have been. Of course, he’d likely have never met the warrior if not for the Breach, but one could dream. Trevelyan is coughing, a rough uncomfortable sound, and Dorian struggles to find mana to fix it. There’s nothing left, and the pulling is like grasping at air, leaving his muscles cramping.

Silence holds for some time, and Dorian drifts with it, even as he continues to press kisses to Trevelyan’s lips, cheeks, and neck. The man holds him, like he’s something precious, and Dorian weeps for what _could_ have been.

“I don’t regret anything.” He says, and Trevelyan glances at him, brows furrowed. “Not the Breach. Not my father, not Corypheus.”

Dorian kisses Trevelyan sloppily, eyes wide open even as the darkness rushes in. Trevelyan meets his fervor, his ardor, and he is mumbling against Dorian’s lips. “I love you, Dorian Pavus. With everything in me.”

“Thank you, amatus.” Dorian whispers, and Trevelyan’s eyes are widening, as though he is just realizing that this _is_ the end, and he pulls Dorian even closer. The feeling’s gone from pretty much everywhere in Dorian’s body, but he feels what heat is left in Trevelyan’s lips as he kisses Dorian feverishly. “Thank you, you have been the greatest gift in my life.”

“Not yet, Dorian. Not yet.” The Inquisitor is pleading, and Dorian’s heart is breaking, because he would do anything, _anything_ , for this man, but he can’t do _this_.

“Not yet.” He agrees weakly, but it’s the first and last lie Dorian Pavus ever tells Inquisitor Trevelyan, and as the darkness blots out the remaining light, Dorian sees _him_ , and that’s all he needs.


End file.
